Cemented carbide materials are well known for their unique combination of properties of hardness, strength, and wear resistance and have accordingly found extensive use in mining tool bits, metal cutting and boring tools, metal drawing dies, wear resistant machine parts and the like. It is known that the wear resistance of cemented carbide materials may be enhanced by the application of thin coatings of a highly wear resistant material such as titanium carbide or aluminum oxide. These coated carbide materials are finding increased commercial utility for certain cutting tool and machining applications.
Economic pressures for higher productivity in machining applications are placing increasing demands upon the performance of cutting tool materials. To achieve high productivity in machining, a tool must be able to cut at high speeds. At cutting speeds, exceed 1500 surface feet per minute (sfpm), the high temperature strength and chemical inertness of a cutting tool material become more and more important. The usefulness of cemented carbide cutting tool materials (the predominant material used in cutting tools today) has been extended to applications requiring cutting speeds of about 1500 sfpm by coating such tools with aluminum oxide. For cutting speeds in excess of 1500 sfpm, cemented carbide tools encounter problems associated with loss of strength and tool nose deformation, which affect dimensional tolerance in the workpiece and contribute to shorter tool life.
Conventional ceramic cutting tools overcome many of these disadvantages but have some limitations relating to their lower impact strength and fracture toughness. This is especially true of many alumina-based conventional ceramic cutting tools. Silicon nitride-based ceramic cutting tools have significantly higher impact strength and fracture toughness, but can exhibit lower than desired chemical inertness when employed in cutting long-chipping metals such as steel.